


The Quietest Poetry

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fireworks, Fourth of July, Healing, Holidays, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Romance, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 08:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15166487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: “He’s not sure how he didn’t think of it. He feels like an idiot. When the blind panic finally recedes, and the sour sweat is sticky and cooling on his skin, he feels like such an idiot for not thinking of it.”





	The Quietest Poetry

**Author's Note:**

> USA Independence Day fic, set about six weeks after Crossfire (8 x 22).

 The quietest poetry

can be 

an explosion of joy

— James Broughton 

* * *

 

Everything hurts. His heaving ribs and the base of his skull where he must have whacked it on the tiles as he slid down the wall. His hips and spine and every other joint ache from the freezing cold floor, and his palms throb with the dark, almost bloody indentations of his fingernails. His scars burn and pulse. Everything hurts, as his blood pounds and his heart races.

He’s not sure how he didn’t think of it. He feels like an idiot. When the blind panic finally recedes, and the sour sweat is sticky and cooling on his skin, he feels like such an idiot for not thinking of it.

It’s ok, though. It’ll _be_ ok.That’s what he tells himself when he climbs painfully to his feet again. What he tells himself in the bathroom mirror, over and over, lips moving: _It’ll be ok._

“Castle?” She’s a cool shimmer of silk as she shrugs awkwardly—painfully—into her robe. She’s a blinking, adorable sourpuss, not a shaking sweaty mess, which means it’ll be ok. It _will_ be. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” he says quickly. He squares himself in the doorway to crowd her back into the bedroom, though he couldn’t say why. It’s not like there’s evidence other than what he carries with him. Other than his own traitorous body, but he crowds her back out of the bathroom anyway. “Sorry I woke—”

“Nightmare,” she cuts him off. She folds her arms across her chest, wincing at the tug and pull of muscle and skin and scar. She forgets to be careful when she’s mad at him. When he makes her worry.She forgets, and his insides are ramping up again. His heart and his blood and his twisting stomach are hell-bent on ramping up. “You had a nightmare, Castle, why didn’t you—”

“I did wake you.” He lifts his own arms with difficulty. He skims his hands down her shoulders with a smile that’s worse than forced. He know it is by the ache in his jaw, but he can’t help playing at it. He can’t help trying to slither past this—out of it—without making it worse. Without dragging her down with him.“As previously established. I totally woke you.”

“On purpose.” She stands her ground. Between the two of them—the shape they’re both in—it’s not much of a standoff. “You’re not supposed to tough it out. You’re supposed to wake me.”

“It wasn’t bad,” he argues. It’s truer than she knows. Kind of truer. “Kate, I promise it wasn’t a bad one.”

“Stop.” She plucks at his shirt. She pulls a drenched, disgusting patch of it away from his skin and makesa face. “Your pajamas are soaked. You stink to high heaven. Castle—”

“We could shower together.”

He lets his voice drop low, desperate to get a hold of himself. Desperate to turn her mind to something, _anything_ else. He takes a step toward her that’s more stumbling than seductive. He makes a grab for the silky sash of her robe, but his hand never gets there.

“Don’t.”

The exhaustion—the sheer _sorrow_ —that comes through in the single word stops him cold. His hand drops, and he’s standing there, staring.

“Kate, I’m just—”

“Just _don’t_ Castle.”She cuts him off again, with asharp, frustrated gesture, and it’s just as well. He has no idea what he might’ve said. No idea what _to_ say. He’s standing there. “Don’t downplay it. Don’t try to be brave or whatever it is you think you’re doing.” Her voice disappears abruptly. Her breath hitches, and it’s painful. Painful to watch. “Don’t shut me out.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” he blurts. He’s sorry. He’s so fucking _sorry_ before the words are even out of her mouth, so he blurts it out. He confesses. “It was—”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to, and he goddamned can’t anyway. The window glass rattles, the entire distant wall of them on the far side of the bedroom. The whole house shakes—it feels that way—and the air goes out of the room. Out of the world in the breath before the sky erupts in silver and gold and red and blue.

“Fireworks,” she hisses. She reaches blindly for his hand. She finds it and clamps down, a death grip.“Jesus, Castle. Fucking fireworks.”

* * *

“Come back to bed.” It’s halfway out of her mouth. She’s dragged him halfway across the floor when she realizes how stupid it is. “No. Not bed.” 

She pulls up short and he stumbles into her. It hurts them both, though he doesn’t register it. His eyes are wide and blank and he doesn’t even register the fact that it _hurts._

“Not the bed,” she mutters, holding on to him. Propping herself up as much as him. “No, Castle. Not bed.” 

She casts a longing glance over her own shoulder at the inviting, pale expanse of it, but it’s in the middle of the damned room. It’s infinitely closer to the windows, because that’s the entire fucking point. That’s the entire fucking _problem_ with the bed and the kitchen and the study and everywhere else she can think of to retreat to. It’s the problem with the whole damned beach house: It’s all windows.

“Here.”

Inspiration strikes. It loosens the tense, aching muscles of her rib cage, her abdomen, and she’s only aware in retrospect that she’s halfway to panic, too. There’s another distant boom, something deep and lightless. Kids. An M-80 and one of the steel barrels on the beach, no doubt, and fucking _kids_.

“Castle. Here. Here.”She pulls him into the closet. The gigantic closet she’s rolled her eyes at and teased him about. The _immense_ closet she’s claimed an ever-expanding corner of. She pulls him in and tugs the door shut tight. “Here.” She shuffles him backward until there’s something for both of them to lean on. A blessed interior wall to hold them both up, and she snakes her arms around his waist. “Here. It’s ok.”

“Ok,” he echoes. She can barely hear it over the pounding of her heart. The pounding of his against the wall of his chest. “It’s ok.”

She’s not sure how long they stand there. Not sure _standing_ is the right word, when really, the two of them are a barely upright heap. It hurts when she thinks to move—to make some kind of . . . long-term plan—but that doesn’t tell her much about time. It always hurts. 

“Shivering,” he says. It’s bleary and stilted. “You’re shivering.”

 _That’s you_. She opens her mouth to say it, then realizes it’s not quite true.

“Both of us,” she says against his shoulder. The admission tugs at something inside her, some tight snarl of fear and hopelessness lets go just a little. “We both are.”

“Need?” He lifts his head. It works on him, too. Admission, confession, _realization_ that it’s not just her. It’s not just him. They are—neither of them—alone. “We need . . .?”

“Blankets.” She tugs at the hem of his shirt. She pulls him closer and pushes him away at the same time. “Pillows.” She looks up at him and musters something stern. The kind of frown that galvanizes him. “There’s a million . . .” She trails off. Her gaze travels upward to the high shelves overhead.

“I can.” He grits his teeth. He unwinds his arms from around her and breathes into the long, slow, agonizing process of reaching overhead. “I can.”

She holds on to him. She curls her fingers around his hips and breathes out, a startled, half-cry of triumph when a comforter slithers down the row of hangers, dragging a rain of pillows after it. They hold on to each other, going slowly to their knees to make up a clumsy kind of pallet.

They clamber on to it. Into it. She holds on to him.

 

* * *

They sleep. It seems impossible, but they do, and it’s dreamless for him, at least. It’s leaden and almost more exhausting than being awake. Almost more exhausting than the stark, staring terror, but it’s dreamless. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers when his mind finally kicks for the surface. Not even whispers. He moves his lips where they rest against her skin. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she asks almost as soundlessly.

Her body is heavy alongside his. They’re a gravitational pull unto themselves, and movement seems impossible. Conversation seems impossible, but he’s sorry.

“For . . . the closet?” It’s a beginning, even if it isn’t true. He isn’t sorry for the closet. He fucking _loves_ the closet and doesn’t care if the whole rest of the house falls down around it. “For pushing this. A house full of people and an . . . explosion-based holiday. I didn’t even think . . .”

“You can’t,” she says slowly, long after the sentence has trailed away into nothing. “You can’t ever think of all the things that can catch you.”

“Comforting. You’re a real comfort, Beckett.” He manages a laugh. A watery laugh against her ear that has her swatting at him. Pinching him, but he fends her off. He stills her and says it again. Means it. “You are. You’re a comfort.”

“When you wake me up.” She gives him a last, fierce pinch. A swat on his thigh. “You have to wake me up.”

“I know. I have to.” He’s back to soundless again. Back to muttering right into her skin. “But it’s . . . I can’t think. When it’s happening. I can’t think.”

She tenses against him. Her mouth opens, and he knows it’s her instinct as much as his to tease. To fall back into their well-worn brand of flirting and fighting, but not one of the hundred things she might say makes its way out of her mouth. She tenses, and holds her peace.

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand that,” he murmurs, working out what it is he’s saying along the way. “When you went away. I’m sorry I didn’t know how hard it was to . . .” He trails off. He tips over the ledge into some terrible kind of understanding. “How hard everything was.”

“No,” she says flatly. Tonelessly, and he feels her face twisting itself into a frown against his neck. “Yes. Yeah. Everything was—everything _is_ —hard like this. When you just don’t know what it will be. A car door or light on glass or the smell of wet grass.” She burrows deeper into his body with every item of her litany. “It’s _all_ so hard. But it’s worse alone.”

“Worse.” He shudders. He feels the freezing-cold prickle of sweat and terror all over again. “I can’t imagine worse.”

“You can’t, Castle.”

The words are flat and toneless. They’re angry and worried and frustrated with him. With _him_ , and he’s sorry again. He’s sorry, and he opens his mouth to say it.

He’s sorry, but she stops his mouth. She raises a shaking hand and patters her fingers over his lips. She calms herself with a moment she takes hold of and the coolness of breath. She calms herself, and he feels it seeping through, skin to skin and right into his own body.

“You don’t have to.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be something else. And then it was this. 


End file.
